Nearing The Finish Line

Last Updated on December 26, 2015 by Kristi Linauer

Hello!  I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend, and a relaxing holiday yesterday…at least those of you here in the U.S. of A.  I actually worked through the weekend, but took yesterday off.  Now today, I’m back at it.

It seems like John & Alice’s kitchen and family room are taking forever to finish, but I promise, I’m nearing the finish line!!  I had hoped to finish on Sunday, but it looks like I’ll need one more day before I can get my mom over to take the final pictures.

I was getting to the point of being incredibly frustrated with myself for taking so long on these rooms, and then I stood back and took a look at them and realized just WHY they had taken so long!  These rooms are packed full of DIY projects!!

The painting alone took what seemed like forever.  Their kitchen is pretty big, and has lots of cabinets.  The task of painting those cabinets seemed never ending.

Along with that came removing all of the doors and drawers, and switching out the hinges and hardware.  That’s a huge job!  Other painting projects included all of the trim, two doors, the fireplace, the fireplace screen, and the bookcase next to the fireplace.

Then there was that huge paneled wall that was painted and then upholstered…

That was certainly no easy task, but I love the way it turned out.  And the added texture that it gives the room was well worth the effort.

Next came the Craigslist dresser that I transformed into a t.v. stand…

That went from an outdated dresser to a pretty little addition to their family room.

Then I got a wild idea to build a coffee table…

That was probably my favorite thing I’ve ever built!

Then I built a mantel…

And a decorative mirror out of wood shims…

But I’m not just all about building!  I also painted and reupholstered not just one, but two occasional chairs…

and four dining chairs…

and my mom and I both tackled reupholstering not one, but two wing back chairs…

I also painted an original piece of artwork for the room…

and made some candlesticks out of staircase spindles…

and a fancy chalkboard, also with spindles…

and a candleholder from outdated lighting…

and a gallery wall…

And let’s not forget the absolute pain that this table was…

After re-making the top, and then having to refinish it after the stain looked horrible, I ended up having to re-make the entire table top again after this one cracked!!  The crack started at a knot, and went clear across the table top along the grain of the wood.  So frustrating, but the final table looks great in the room, so I’m almost glad it happened.  I’ll show you later this week.

Then there are the three end tables that I painted, the chandelier that I painted, all of the pillows and feather pillow forms that my mom and I both worked on, and all of the accessories.

Yeah.  I’m exhausted.

The last big task was to do something about the hole left in the kitchen cabinets where the old trash compactor used to be.

I worked on that on Sunday, and I hope to finish it up today.  Then after a bit of tweaking on the accessories, I can officially call these rooms finished!!

I can’t wait to show you the final before and after…and then take a reeeeeally long nap (or possibly a really long vacation).

But for now, duty calls.  Hope you have a wonderful day!!